And the days grew longer…

2014 you are finally here… I didn’t even think about you until half way through the year. Then the appointed hour finally came, 2013 exploded, and I waited for you madly, high-pitched and half-crazed, squeezing still, as still as my whirling mind would allow, like wincing hotly through a dental procedure. Much falsehood has been painfully shed.

We can’t lie to ourselves, passioneers. What we may consent to as an innocuous back-room deal – a harmless enough compromise the head makes with the heart – it will expand and expand until The Baroness in you rages into the room on a tidal wave of skirts and with one crimson cry razes the whole house of cards.

We were not meant to whisper over embroidery needles. We do not sleep in glass castles and wake up to glass slippers, no. There is red in us. So red it shocks the eyes. I know this. Every moon I am reminded. And we know when we are rotting. If the mind refuses to admit this, the body will turn up the volume. It has ways, ingenious ways – you cannot outsmart it.

So let the dead trees fall. If no sap runs, it is firewood. I will not be sentimental. Swing the axe. Shatter the mirrors. Tear off the old flesh. Get to the green. In some way, we must find water. This is the ruthless beauty of life.

My dear listeners and fellow travellers, I am writing again, after a period of agonized stagnancy. I bought a house and acreage with fruit trees in the country that feels sacred. I am slowly turning it into the magical kingdom that I imagined when the Baroness character first showed up in my mind. I set up my paints and moved my old, beloved piano. Royal and I have parted ways as friends. My long-stalled musical is squirming and has brought forth brilliant co-conspirators. A new album is coming, and paintings, and so much more, but at present it all feels like an approaching storm… leaves are twisting restlessly. The wind smells ominous and living things twitch and twinkle with their preparing.

I am not writing this to make promises because frankly, I’m lousy at those. I am merely reporting that I feel all of you nearby, and I thank you for calling this music into the world through me. That’s what is happening, I really believe that. So when the storm hits and the colours flash and the orchestra erupts, know that it is OUR creation.